Here’s another sampling of images I’ve taken. This one is from the Darth Plageus scene. I’ve singled on this one because of how problematic the purple skin tones are. I figure this scene is another good demonstration for how the edit will look depending on which color grade I choose.
Let’s start innocently enough with the opening of the scene. We’ll start with the beginning shot of Anakin running into the opera house. I realized the first still I took didn’t show any reds, and because of how common red is for Episode III, let’s take a look at a shot that’s mostly red.
Original Blu-Ray
Episode II Themed Grade
HDR Grade
Overall, I think the HDR Grade wins in the red category. However, the teal appearance I’ve been worried about is also prevalent, especially if you look at the Coruscant background. While the original and episode II grade show a normal grey Coruscant, you can see a green hue to the HDR grade.
Let’s get to the opera house, shall we?
This shot has a lot of faces, which makes it a perfect demonstration. Here’s the original blu-ray as shown.
As you can see, the skin tones look too reddish. Let’s take a look at the Episode II theme grade.
And here’s the HDR grade.
Once again, I think the HDR grade wins this round, but the teal issue is a consistent one. Perhaps even more so here because the dark areas (particularly on the left side of the image) are much greener than in the other two grades.
Next, let’s look at the fancy ball itself. Here’s the original blu-ray image most of you have seen.
Here’s the ball with the Episode II grade.
And finally, the HDR grade.
The choice to make this shot darker in the Episode II and HDR grades than what was shown on the blu-ray is intentional, as the blu-ray suffers from a lot of white clipping. You can see this at the bottom of the biggest ball where it’s so white that you can barely see any detail in the blu-ray still, while the other two grades show more detail. Regardless of which grade is chosen, the white clipping issue is one I intend to fix. Overall, I think the Episode II grade wins simply by being the darkest one in the bunch, but I’ll let everyone else be the judge on that.
The last still I have to show is a shot of Anakin and Palpatine. This one is more of a close-up than the others, making the decisions on skin tones even clearer. Here’s what the blu-ray blessed (or cursed) us with.
I really hate the skin tones in this shot, even if it is natural to the scene. Palpatine’s face looks so weird in all the wrong ways.
Let’s look at the Episode II grade.
The yellow-ish tint in this grade is subtle, but an improvement over the blu-ray release.
Now, for the HDR grade.
Personally, I think the HDR grade skin tones look phenomenal here. However, the green tone is at its most visible in this still as well.